Shows & Tickets

Buster Keaton Film Festival

Buster Keaton Film Festival

Details

Venue

Frauenthal Theater

Organizer

Co-Produced with Buster Keaton Society

Tickets: $8

23rd Annual International Buster Keaton Convention

Buster Keaton Film Festival

The General and The Butcher Boy

The International Buster Keaton Society celebrates the 100th anniversary of Buster’s debut in motion pictures! Buster Keaton’s masterpiece The General (1927) is considered by many to be one of the greatest films of all time. The story of a Southern railway engineer who has “only two loves in his life” — his locomotive and the beautiful Annabelle Lee, the film is a rollicking, epic comedy featuring what many consider to be the greatest comic chase in the history of film! An epic of silent comedy, the film is a dazzlingly funny and accurate historical recreation of a Civil War episode, featuring hundreds of extras and some of the screens most dangerous and breathtaking stunt sequences. Also screening will be Keaton’s first film appearance in Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle’s short, “The Butcher Boy”. Made 100 years ago, this short is a blistering funny knockabout comedy with some of the most energetic and wild slapstick ever captured on film! Both films will be accompanied by internationally known silent film organist, Dennis Scott, on the Mighty Frauenthal Barton Theater Organ.

Dennis Scott, an internationally known silent film organist, is the official organist for the International Buster Keaton Society, performing live music for the silent films shown at the Damfinos’ annual conventions. He is house organist at Chicago’s historic Music Box Theatre, playing weekend intermissions, the annual Sing-Along Sound of Music, the annual Music Box Christmas Sing-Along, several themed film festivals, special events, and the acclaimed Second Saturday Silent Cinema Series, which was named Best New Film Series of 2011 by Chicago Magazine and Best Matinee Film Series of 2012 by the Chicago Reader. He is past president of the Chicagoland Theatre Organ Society and the Silent Film Society of Chicago. He recently recorded a CD with the West End Jazz Band of Chicago, and is featured on Paul E. Gierucki’s DVD/Blu-Ray set of Mack Sennett films.

Tickets

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Box Office

Box Office Hours: M-F 11am-5:30pm

You may purchase tickets online two hours prior to show time and then at the Frauenthal Center Box Office.

On performance days, the box office is open Monday-Friday 11:00a.m. – 30 minutes after curtain. On weekends, the box office opens two hours prior to show time and remains open 30 minutes after curtain.